Friday, November 12, 2010

Rebatched Stars & More Alkanet

O.K., I've never claimed to be the sharpest crayon in the box, but I think I finally figured out why the Star of Bethlehem soap wasn't quite as dark purple as I wanted. Well, the amount I was using (same as Lava Lamp soap) was for a HALF BATCH! Can we have a collective "Duuuhhh" in my honor?

The realization floated into my consciousness the other day like a bluebird -a welcome surprise! Sure enough, I doubled the alkanet and have a lovely deep purple curing as I type. Chalk one up for the Sister! See the final color below.

I also rebatched soap in the microwave this a.m. for the first time! Lots of fun. Here are my photos of the process I used to make the stars. (I actually like their marbley look better than the plain ones!)

6 comments:

Michele
said...

You go girl! We have to hang in there and try, try again don't we. I guess I am going to have to get very familiar with rebatching.

Love the new look of the Star of Bethlehem Soap. Don't you love it when it dawns on you what you did wrong? I would much rather figure it out and try again with success than to be wondering into eternity about what went wrong.

Michele it was such a RELIEF to figure it out! I didn't realize how much it was bugging me. As of this very batch I now have an Official Soap Notebook. I used to just write my main recipes on cards and do a lot of the "tweaking" without taking copious notes -those days are Officially Over! My brain feels less cluttered already! :D

Nice work! Isn't alkanet challenging? Challenging and thrilling... I am having even better results from Ratanjot, supposed to be the same but I am getting different results. Must post about it soon! xo Jen

Thanks Jen! I was sure impressed with your recent Ratanjot purple bar -just lovely! I can't wait to hear details. I've been experimenting with a "palm free" version of my recipe...and I have to thank you for making me aware of the "palm issues" - cross your fingers, the first batch seems really pretty good to me. Have a wonderful weekend! :D

Nice work ! love the idea of the shooting stars; they look wonderful, very effective, at least you worked out what happened:) I just hate it when something doesn't turn out the way I wanted it to and no matter what, I can't figure out what went wrong, so frustrating!